He reminded Owen of a hare on the run, the same heaving sides, panicked eyes, even, with his turban gone and his shaven head, the hare’s laid-back ears.
Another student rushed along behind the row of deserted street-stalls. He brushed right past Owen and then doubled back up an alleyway.
“That one!” snapped Owen. “Follow him! Find out where he goes!”
Georgiades, the Greek, who was one of Owen’s best agents, was gone in a flash.
The student was Nuri Pasha’s secretary and son, the difficult Ahmed.
***
The tea-seller put the urn back on his stall with a thump. Without asking, he drew a glass of tea and handed it to Owen.
“Watching,” he said, “is thirsty work.”
The only students on the square now were walking in ones and twos, sometimes supporting a third. Around the edges of the square, though, the foot police were still in action, prising out the students from their hiding-places among the stalls and chairs. Owen was pleased to see that McPhee had them well in hand. It was only too easy for them to get out of control in a situation such as this.
McPhee, helmetless and with his fair hair all over the place, was plainly enjoying himself. His face was lit up with excitement. It was not that he was a violent man; he just loved, as he would have put it, a bit of a scrap. Strange, thought Owen, for he was a civilian, an ex-teacher. On second thoughts perhaps it was not so strange.
He was using a cane, not a pick-handle. He had a revolver at his waist but had not drawn it throughout the whole business, even when he had been threatened in the car.
He was driving slowly round the square now, ostensibly chivvying the students, in fact, Owen noted, calling off his men.
At the far side of the Place the mounted troop had reformed and was sitting at ease, the horses still excited and breathing heavily, pick-handles now hanging loosely again from the riders’ wrists.
Georgiades reappeared.
He spotted the tea-seller and came up to the stall.
“Here is a man who deserves to be favoured of Fortune,” he said, “the first man back on the street with his tea.”
“I shall undoubtedly be rich,” said the tea-seller, “but not yet.”
He made Georgiades some mint tea. The Greek took the glass and stood casually by Owen.
“See how our friend is already rewarded!” he said to Owen. “Heads are the only thing damaged on the street today.”
“And my head not among them,” said the tea-seller.
He took the lid off the urn, looked inside and went to fetch some more water.
Georgiades turned so that he was looking out over the Place.
“Your little friend,” he said quietly.
“Yes?” said Owen, equally quietly, and turning, too. They might have been discussing the demonstration.
“You saw where he went?”
Georgiades nodded.
“Not far.”
Owen waited. A student limped past.
“Where did he go?”
“To a newspaper office.”
“He would!” said Owen. “Which?”
“Al Liwa”
“Might have guessed,” said Owen, recalling the chanting he had heard. Al Liwa was the recently established organ of the National, or Hisb-el-Watani, Party.
“They’d have heard, anyway,” said Georgiades, thinking Owen was worried about the paper’s reaction to the breaking up of the demonstration.
“It’s not that,” said Owen.
He told Georgiades about Nuri Pasha. With another agent he might not have been so forthcoming. The Greek, however, was reliable.
“Funny friends the boy has,” said Georgiades, “for a son of Nuri Pasha.”
“He hates his father,” said Owen, “or so his father told me.”
“His father is not very popular with the Nationalists either,” said Georgiades, touching his chin where the barber had skimped.
“Yes. Interesting, isn’t it?”
“Want me to put a man on him?”
“Not yet. You’ve got someone on the al Liwa offices?”
“Selim. He’s quite bright.”
“OK. Tell him to keep an eye open for young Ahmed.”
Georgiades nodded.
“I’ll do a bit of digging, too,” he said.
The tea-seller returned, piloting a small boy staggering under the weight of a huge water-jar. Georgiades drained his glass.
“May the streets be full of trouble!” he said to the tea-seller. “So that you can make your fortune.”
“Thank you,” said the tea-seller, “for your kind wishes.”
Chapter Four
Owen had arranged for the sergeant to be brought to the Kasr el Nil barracks and the following morning he went down to interrogate him.
He met Mahmoud at the bridge and they walked into the barracks together.
The guards at the main gate eyed the Egyptian curiously but non-committally and pointed out the administration block, a large, old-fashioned building with lattices and sentry-boxes.
Their way to it took them past a vast, sanded parade ground on which soldiers were drilling. A squad approached them along the edge of the square. As it passed, the drilling sergeant gave them an eyes-right. Owen, who was in Army uniform, acknowledged with a salute. His eye took in their hot, strained faces. New from England, he thought; and fairly new to the Army, too, judging by their awkwardness.
The sentry-boxes and lattices were touched up with white, but inside the administration block everything was a darker, more restful green. A huge three-bladed fan rotated above the heads of the clerks bent at their desks in the orderly room.
One of the clerks collected the passes from Owen and disappeared into an inner room. A moment or two later a corporal came out with them in his hand, greeted Owen and called to a bearer squatting on the floor by the door. The man hurried out.
“It’s all laid on, sir,” said the corporal. “The escort got in about half an hour ago and is waiting in the guard-room. They’ll bring him over directly.”
“Fine,” said Owen. “Have you got a suitable room?”
“There’s one we normally use for this sort of thing,” said the corporal. “I’ll take you, sir.”
He registered Mahmoud’s presence.
“Mr. el Zaki,” said Owen. “From the Parquet.”
“Good morning, sir,” said the corporal politely.
“I’d like him to listen in.”
“Oh,” said the corporal, and hesitated. “A bit difficult, sir,” he said, after a moment.
“I don’t want anything too special,” said Owen. “Is there a room next door? Yes? Well, stick a chair in that and leave the door open. That should be enough.”
“Yes, sir,” said the corporal, but looked unhappy. His eyes sent desperate signals to Owen, which Owen refused to read. He knew very well what the trouble was. The Army guarded its privileges jealously. One of those was that its soldiers were subject to no legal processes but its own. It would not allow its men to be brought before any civilians, much less Egyptian civilians.
“Mr. el Zaki will not be actually present,” he pointed out helpfully.
“I—I know, sir,” said the corporal, thinking hard.
“You have the passes.”
“Yes, sir.” The corporal glanced at them uncomfortably. “They—they don’t actually say, sir—” he began with a rush and then stopped.
“They wouldn’t,” said Owen. He was on tricky ground. He could not insist. “But they do authorize Mr. el Zaki to come with me. And the reason for that is plain, Corporal,” he added, with just a little amount of stress, pulling his rank.
“Yes, sir,” the corporal responded automatically to the inflection, “of course sir.”
“Then—?”
“I’ll have to check, sir,” he said. “Sorry, sir,” he added apologetically.
He went off along the corridor. Because of the heat all the rooms had their doors open, and so Owen was able to hear very clearly the explosion at the far end of the building.
“A bloody Gyppy? Certainly not!”
Heavy footsteps hurried down the corridor and a flushed major burst into the room.
“What the—” he began, and then, seeing Mahmoud, stopped.
Even the Army had to make some effort to keep up appearances.
“Would you step this way, Captain?” he said stiffly, and stalked off up the corridor.
In his room he wheeled on Owen.
“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’d like el Zaki to listen in.”
“He can’t. I’m not having one of our men questioned by a bloody native.”
“He’s a member of the Parquet, for Christ’s sake!”
“Still a bloody native as far as I’m concerned,” said the major, “and I’m not having him question one of our men.”
“Who the hell said anything about him questioning anybody? I’m questioning. He’s listening.”
“Same thing.”
“It’s not the same thing. He’ll be in a separate room. All I want is the doors open.”
“Can’t be done,” said the major flatly.
“I’d like it done.”
The major’s cheeks tightened.
“Would you, now,” he said sarcastically. “And just who the hell are you?”
“I’m the Mamur Zapt,” said Owen. “And I’ve got authorization to interrogate, and I’d like to bloody get on with it.”
The major looked at him hard. Then he went across to his desk and sat down.
“You’re the Mamur Zapt, are you?” He spoke with distaste.
“That’s right,” said Owen. “OK?”
“You can question him,” said the major, with a stress on the “you.” “He can’t.”
“I don’t want him to question. I want him to listen.”
“He can’t.”
“I want facilities made available for him to listen in.”
The major looked at the papers on his desk.
“It doesn’t say anything about that here,” he said.
“It doesn’t have to.”
“For something like this,” said the major, “I’d need authorization.”
“You don’t usually.”
“I do this time,” said the major. He thought for a moment and then smiled. “Yes,” he said, “that’s right. For something like this I’d need special authorization. In writing.”
“That would be too late. The man’s coming out on Thursday.”
“Pity!”
Owen considered going over the major’s head, directly to the commander-in-chief. He knew one of the Sirdar’s aides-de-camp.
The major must have seen him look at the telephone, for he said: “I’d need it in writing. From the Sirdar. Personally.”
It would take too long. Even if he got through to John, John would need time to clear it.
The major was watching him. “OK?” he said.
“Not OK,” said Owen.
“Dear, dear!”
“There’s a certain amount of rush on.”
“Difficult.”
“Could be,” said Owen. “For you.”
“Why me?” The major raised eyebrows.
“If things go wrong.”
“Why should they?”
Owen carried on as if he hadn’t heard.
“Especially if it came out why they went wrong.”
“I’ll risk that.”
All the same the major must have felt a little uneasy, for he said: “You won’t get anything out of him. Not if he’s coming out on Thursday.”
“I’ll risk that,” said Owen. “It’s just that I’d like el Zaki to listen in.”
“Didn’t you hear?” asked the major. “In writing. From the Sirdar. Personally.”
Owen sighed.
“Anything else I can do for you?” asked the major.
“No,” said Owen. “Not yet.”
He turned to go, then stopped.
“Oh, just one thing—”
“Yes?”
“Major…?”
“Brooker,” said the major. “Major Brooker.”
“Thank you,” said Owen. “That was it.”
***
“It wasn’t my fault, sir,” the ex-sergeant said. “I trusted those bloody Gyppies. That bloody ’Assan. He’d got it all figured out. He had his mates outside. ’Course, I was wrong to trust him. That was my mistake.”
Ingenuous blue eyes met Owen’s. Owen, who did not believe a word of it, decided to play along.
“Tell me about this Hassan,” he said.
“Bloody orderly, sir. Used to run messages. ’Ere, there and everywhere. Kept his eyes open. Didn’t miss much.”
“You think he tipped somebody off?”
“Or let them in, sir. There was a skylight found open. You know, I’d been looking at that bloody skylight a couple of days before. There was only a simple catch on it and I thought to myself: Anyone could open that. But I didn’t bother much because it was so small. I thought: Nobody can get in there. But do you know what I think, sir? The way it was done?”
He leaned forward confidentially.
“They slipped in one of those walads. A boy. Probably stripped him naked and greased him all over. Seen it done. At Ismailia. Bloody gang of kids. Went all through the mess. Watches, cash, even your bloody handkerchief. The little bastards. But they got too cocky and the guards caught one of them. Brought the little bugger to me. I caught hold of him and was going to teach him a thing or two but he slipped through my hands. That’s how I knew he was greased. Didn’t do him much good. The guard caught him with the rifle butt.”
“And you think that’s what may have happened here?”
“Can’t swear to it, sir. But the skylight was open the morning after, and it was only big enough for a kid.”
“Could be,” Owen agreed.
“’Course, it was my fault, sir,” said the man. “I admit that. I should have kept my eyes open. I made a mistake. But I’ve paid for it.”
The weathered, experienced face, which retained a sunburn despite nearly a year’s confinement, assumed a virtuous expression.
An old hand at the game, thought Owen. Twenty-five years in the Army, fifteen of them in India. There was not much he didn’t know. Three times reduced, each time made up again. Crafty, plausible, he would know how to make himself useful. How willing would he be to be useful now?
“Pity to get into trouble just because of a Gyppy,” he said aloud.
“I know, sir,” said the ex-sergeant, as if ruefully. “I could have kicked myself.”
“It’s easy done,” said Owen.
“My mistake was to trust the bleeders. I treated them decent. That ’Assan was a useful bloke. Smart. He did me a favour or two, and I did him a few. Used to give him fags. And not say nothing if I caught him smoking in the armoury.” He grimaced. “Should have. That was my mistake.”
“In the armoury?”
“I know, sir. I dare say that’s what gave him the idea.”
Thin trickles of sweat ran down on either side of the man’s nose. There was no fan in the room and it was very hot. The one window, high up in the wall, was shuttered. The door was closed.
“Did he ever talk?”
“’Assan? He went missing that night.”
Very convenient, thought Owen. And part of it might even be true. They might well have used the skylight, might even have slipped a boy in, as the ma
n had said. Only, of course, he knew more about it than he had let on. How much did he know? Not much, if it was just a matter of money passing and agreement to turn a blind eye. Hassan could even have been the go-between. In which case the ex-sergeant would not know anyone else.
Owen looked through the file in front of him. One of the times the ex-sergeant had been reduced was for selling Army equipment. Not weaponry—the Army took that seriously. Odds and ends from the stores. At least, that was all they had caught him for. The chances were that he had flogged quite a lot more. And once a seller…The idea might have come to him again. He had been running a woman in Ismailia and had needed the cash. He might have approached somebody. There was always a ready market for weapons. He might have known someone. Worth a try.
Owen studied the face opposite him. Shrewd, Army-wise, hard. A drinker’s face. Little red veins beneath the tan, tell-tale puffiness below the eyes. In certain circumstances, thought Owen, I could crack this man.
But not easily. Not here, and probably not now. He was sitting there at ease. He knew he was coming out on Thursday. All he had to do was to sit tight and say nothing. There was no way of putting him under pressure.
Outside in the corridor he heard the guards’ feet shuffling. It would take too long to break the man, and before then he would have been interrupted.
He had to find a way of getting the man to cooperate. He might be willing if he thought there was something in it for him.
“You’ve been reduced before,” said Owen. “Three times.”
“Yes, sir,” said the man equably.
“Gets harder.”
The man gave a little shrug.
Used to it, thought Owen.
“How much longer have you got?” he asked.
The man looked slightly surprised.
“To serve, sir? Four years.”
“Time enough to get made up again,” said Owen. “It would be nice to go out with a bit of money in your pocket.”
The man looked at him cautiously, but his interest was aroused.
“Help me,” said Owen, “and I might help you.”
He waited.
After a moment, the man responded.
“Exactly how could I help you, sir?”
“A name. All I want is a name.”
The man rubbed his chin. There was a faint rasp. In the heat it was never possible to shave closely.
The Mamur Zapt & the Return of the Carpet Page 6
